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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22454593">I’d rather keep the bullet this time</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhidee/pseuds/Rhidee'>Rhidee</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Good Omens - Neil Gaiman &amp; Terry Pratchett</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe, Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Incomprehensible Angelic Nature, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 05:42:18</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>586</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22454593</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rhidee/pseuds/Rhidee</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Aziraphale never loved him, and maybe that was how it was meant to be.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>(Unrequited, Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens), they ran out of time)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>20</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>I’d rather keep the bullet this time</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Uploading from phone so this might be wonky, but here's a quick fic i wrote in class, inspired by "Wishbone" by Richard Siken, readable at the link below.</p><p>https://words-end-here.livejournal.com/29318.html</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Aziraphale never loved him, and maybe that was how it was meant to be.  Maybe his bones were meant to be bloodied and burnt in a fire of sacrifice, maybe he was always meant to smile for a stone, faceless mirror.  Maybe, Crowley thought, fire cracking his bones and burnt ash in his eyes and the soles of his stupid human shoes burning on the hot floor, maybe his life was just a tragedy drawn out.</p><p>The bookshop was fire and ash and it wasn’t a movie, it wasn’t a grand scene where the inside burns but the outside stays solid, the foundation allowing purification.  It was brutal and honest and a wall collapsed somewhere and Crowley collapsed too, drawn into the black hole of gravity torn apart at the seams destroying the potential of futures in the unknowable tear of the void.</p><p>And then there was nothing more, no more Crowley, no more story, not that one anyway.  The building fell down like a house of cards and the sunglasses warped in the heat and maybe a soul can’t carry on without a body or will, maybe there was just nothing left, he burned too hot and too fast like a candle on both ends of responsibility and love so bright it burned white like angels wings.</p><p>The house fell down and the curtains fell literally and cinematically and there was nothing more.  People on the streets watched it, or rather to the left, to the right, watching to see if the fire would spread, because the building was already too far gone.  Watched firefighters, who had no part in this story, who were forging their own tapestries and would be nothing but a strand in this, put out the fire with the fear and apathy of those used to fighting things larger than one man.  Watched people go in and investigate, determine a cause for the flame, leave.  Then they got bored, as people do, went back to their own lives and puttered around in their own stories and watched telly and went to parks to feed ducks and didn’t think about the fire beyond an explanation to visiting friends.</p><p>And Aziraphale stood with his shirt clutched tight, staring at the burnt-out husk, eyes burning with afterimages of Crowley’s wilted plants, a white knight too late.  He trembled like foreshocks were bleeding out of his skin, like an earthquake was about to blow out of him and rupture the earth, like maybe the cosmos and the end times could fit in one angel in a human suit, like the big bang could be one tear dripping down a pale face and then incomprehensible divinity.</p><p>But that wasn’t the future that happened here.  Aziraphale let himself sniff, once, and slowly and painfully let go of his shirt.  Let go of Crowley, slowly, yet too fast.  Let go of human things, and caring for more than God’s will.  Let go of resistance, and the taste that lingers after a good meal, and smiling eyes behind shades, and so many tiny things you don’t remember to cherish, like sun through grass and the feeling of thick parchment.  He let it go.  He ascended human comprehension.  He walked away, an angel in a human suit, and nothing more complex than that.  A large being holding a tiny tool to do detail work on the future, a beekeeper who cherishes the bees, but never, ever, names them.</p><p>Crowley burned.  Aziraphale walked.</p><p>And the story did nothing more, at all.</p>
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